In the food service industry, the prompt availability of high quality hot beverages, predominantly coffee, is a necessity. Since customers may request such hot beverages in sporadic intervals and in varying amounts throughout the day, it has become necessary to have large volumes of fresh beverage available on demand. At the same time, it is desirable to provide beverage dispensing capabilities at a number of locations throughout a restaurant or other location so that servers or other wait staff do not need to return to the brewer to retrieve a fresh beverage.
Thus, manufacturers of coffee brewers have developed satellite (or shuttle) brewing systems. In such systems, the beverage is brewed at a central brewing station, and then transported in separate and portable beverage dispensing containers (commonly referred to as shuttles) to various convenient locations at which the beverage can be dispensed for consumption either by food service personnel or the consumer. For a further discussion of satellite brewing systems, see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,907,993 issued to Van Camp, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,571 issued to Roberts.
Often, the beverage is held in the shuttle until all of the beverage has been dispensed, frequently resulting in a holding time of multiple hours. Accordingly, there can be some settling of solids in the brewed beverage to the bottom of the internal beverage holding tank (or liner) of the shuttle, which can adversely affect the quality of the beverage. Furthermore, there can be an inconsistency in the temperature of the brewed beverage held in the shuttle as a result of inconsistent application of heat to the shuttle when it is at the brewing station.
It would thus be desirable to provide a design and construction of a portable beverage dispensing container (or shuttle) of a satellite brewing system that addresses some of these deficiencies of the prior art.